Faces
by CrystallicSky
Summary: You can tell a lot about a person by the look on their face. CHACK, ONESHOT


**Faces**

**By: CrystallicSky**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or any of its characters, nor do I make any profit or attempt to with the writing of this or any of my other pieces.**

**Warnings: Very mild hints of homosexuality, but otherwise, nothing.**

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If there was but one person in the entire world whose face was a dead giveaway to what they were feeling, it would undoubtedly be Jack Spicer.

Chase watched the self-proclaimed Evil genius often to have discovered this fact and though he hated to admit it, he sometimes couldn't _stop_ watching.

It often amazed him; the simple fact of how _unguarded_ Spicer was with his emotions. It was as if he felt he had nothing to hide, even in cases when he probably _should_ conceal _something._

Chase could tell immediately when Jack was happy with even a brief glance at his face. His eyes would brighten as if shined upon by a light and his lips would curve into a pleased smile of seemingly perfect satisfaction. When he was particularly gleeful, Jack's smile would broaden, lips pulling back ever so slightly to reveal of hint of straight, off-white teeth. The corners of his lips would try their very hardest (and fail) to reach his ears, exposing a dimple that very few knew Jack even _had_ in the process.

Of course, Chase knew of it, though he didn't see it often. Jack was hardly _ever_ the dimple-showing sort of happy.

More often than not, Jack was instead frightened or sad, feelings that came with the territory of being both the Xiaolin _and_ Heylin punching bag.

Both expressions, Chase found distasteful on the young man, but particularly that of fear. Raised brows, parted lips, wide eyes filled with terror, oft accompanied by trembling and wildly irrational pleas for mercy…

It made Chase _angry_ to see Jack like this; reduced to pathetic survival instincts and blind subservience.

It simply didn't _suit_ Spicer! He was a genius, for gods' sakes, a claim the everlord knew to be more than a braggart's claim. He had _seen_ the things Jack had created with nothing more than some scrap metal, circuitry, and his own two hands and furthermore, he had compared it to what others in robotics fields all around the world had done and were striving for.

The kind of things Jack had perhaps done at some very young, toddling age were at about the level of these current 'triumphs' in the field and what he achieved now were the sorts of things the scientific community _hoped_ to achieve upwards of a thousand _years_ from now!

Spicer was over a thousand years ahead of his time and yet, when threatened, he screamed and groveled and pleaded shamefully? Like some kind of beaten dog? It was insane and it was little wonder that the incongruence downright infuriated Chase!

Oh, but speaking of fury, there _was_ one expression of Jack's that Chase adored, and it was that of anger.

It wasn't often that Spicer got angry, but when he _did…_ Well, Chase did not hesitate to call the expression beautiful, for that is what it was.

When Jack was angry; when he was downright _furious,_ that simpering air of weakness that seemed to linger around him constantly disappeared. For a few precious moments, he was powerful and not only that, but _dangerous._ His red eyes burned like a demon's, glaring with a concentrated hatred that nearly forced a shiver from one as calm and collected as Chase was.

Teeth bared, nostrils flared, and a deep furrow in his brow, the dragonlord got the very distinct feeling that for even that one, brief moment, Jack Spicer was one-hundred percent capable of murder.

It was a strangely attractive thought, one that had long kept Chase interested in the youth even when it seemed he would remain a pathetic weakling for the rest of his life.

Jack possessed an implosive sort of anger: when something was done to him or said about him, he would not immediately get angry. In fact, he would instead allow himself to be pushed around, insulted, and degraded because he didn't know how to, or rather believed himself _incapable_ of retaliating. Chase had seen such people before; had seen individuals take physical and verbal abuse day after day after day without so much as a word of protest.

Then, one of those days, they would snap and kill just about everyone in a two-mile radius simply because they couldn't _take_ it anymore.

_That_ was what appealed to Chase, that bottled-up rage. It was appealing because he could use that rage, certainly, but moreso because of the person bottling it up.

Spicer really _was_ the perfect candidate to be his apprentice: he was brilliant, for one thing, and he could easily be taught to use the anger he had properly instead of containing it, but the underestimation factor he possessed was worth its weight in gold.

When one saw Jack, he was not perceived as a threat. How could he be? A slim, eyeliner-wearing goth who cringed at the very thought of combat would be easily dismissed, perhaps even _laughed_ at rather than thought of as dangerous.

But, under Chase's tutelage, he most definitely _would_ be dangerous.

However, it was Jack's facial expressions that both interested and caused Chase to hesitate in his actions.

While he had a lovely smile and an even lovelier scowl along with looks and habits of sadness and fear that the everlord just _itched_ to train out of Jack, there was something else often on the young man's face, something…Chase couldn't quite identify.

He it saw it most times out of the corner of his eye during battle or while conversing with someone else in Jack's presence; whenever Jack believed him to be distracted and not looking.

At first, Chase had thought it to be happiness for the slight smile that accompanied the unknown emotion, but it was quickly decided against: this smile was too…subdued, too simply content to stem directly from happiness. Spicer's cheeks, as well, seemed too flushed for it to just be a feeling of joy.

For one as pale as he, whose skin stayed white near constantly despite a myriad of circumstances, it had to be something special to force some color onto Jack's face.

His eyes in such moments only puzzled Chase more, half-lidded and filled with something warm and inviting.

A long-forgotten part of the warlord whispered the name of the emotion it suspected from the very back of his mind, encouraging him to just take Jack as his own, already; make _claim_ to him before somebody else realized what he could be and did it themselves. He had to hurry, while Jack still l-

He doesn't now, another, much stronger part of Chase hissed in response. How could he? How could _anyone_? After all he'd done, after the perfect sort of Evil he'd become, the idea that someone could feel that towards him was ridiculous; _impossible._

But if that were true, what on Earth was that dreamy expression Jack only wore when he wasn't looking and for Chase and Chase alone?

To that, Chase had no answer.

And so, he bided his time, thinking things over until such a time when he could make a concrete decision as to what Spicer would be to him.

Soon, Jack would come to Chase on his own and make a confession, one that would confirm the dragonlord's 'impossible' suspicion and influence the man to take himself a new apprentice-and-something-more.

But that would be later.

For now, however, he would wait and think, but above all, he would watch, repeatedly drawn to Jack Spicer and his expressions that were a crystal-clear window to his feelings.

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**A/N: Just a fluffy little oneshot I had in my head and had to get out for it to leave me alone.**

**Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it! :D**


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